TheAss With Ears (President Barack Obama) took a facetious swipe at the squiggly signature of one of his Ali Baba thieves-in-waiting. The shyster whose signature was the object of Obama’s joke was Chief of Staff Jack Lew, who has been nominated for Treasury Secretary.

“I had never noticed Jack’s signature,” the president quipped. “And when this was highlighted yesterday in the press, I considered rescinding my offer to appoint him. … [But] Jack assures me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not debase our currency should he be confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury.”

As I say, an ass with ears. Not even A-Jad (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) is as callous about American monetary policy.

Deficits and debt, and the manipulation of the money supply to support state expansion and spending: these are what debase the dollar.

Mr. president, the manipulation of the quantity of money and its price (interest rates) are what devalue American assets. It is your infinite Quantitative Easing (QEn, where “n” stands for an indefinite number).

The president obviously doesn’t think that a signature is what debases a country’s coin. But having done his “fair share” to diminish the worth of the currency, he is nevertheless audacious enough to joke about a debased dollar to a crowd as stupid and as privileged as he. (After all, who gets the funny-money first? Rome and its armies of sycophants and servants, for by the time the new money reaches the Provinces, it has lost a chunk of its purchasing power.)